Formal Grammars and the Natural Language User: A Review

Combinatory Linguistics

“…In particular, it seems that, when the theory of transformational grammar is properly formulated, any such grammar must meet formal conditions that restrict it to the enumeration of recursive sets." Levelt (1974) is more explicit. He equates descriptive adequacy of a theory with providing linguistic grammars that stay within recursive grammars, and explanatory adequacy with providing primitive recursive grammars, i.e.…”

“…What makes them decidable is a meta-theoretical question, but it would not lead to a theory of language if it fails to engage substantive constraints in a linguistic theory. Levelt (1974) suggests that one such constraint is the learnability-in-principle, which amounts to saying that acquirable grammars are the primitive recursive ones. This is one of the running themes of this book, and it requires a closer look at substantive constraints on grammars, which we will narrow down to a theory of possible lexical categories.…”